Pacific Beach and the Rainforest
Trip Start
Mar 01, 2006
1
314
551
Trip End
Dec 01, 2007
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Parque Nacional Chiloe,
Chile
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
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After spending the morning getting ready, we took the afternoon bus to the National Park, on the west side of the island. Bruno defected at the last minute, lazy Bruno, so we left our luggage with him. That left me with Lionel, Marie and Eva. The girls had tents and could host us, but we did not have sleeping mats, which are really compulsory, otherwise you just get too cold from direct contact with the ground. But we could not find any equipment rental in Castro.
We arrived in the village of Cucao, entry point of the national park. After discussing, crosschecking, asking again to the guardaparque (staff), we knew that we could not rent mats, that the refugio we were counting on was in fact almost destroyed, but that we might find enough wood floor surface left to set up the tents (sleeping on wood is ok, as it is a good thermal isolant). We had also bought steaks for the evening meal, counting on maintained fireplaces, but apparently there was really not much left in the refugios...
We started walking at 3 in the afternoon, the first 5 kilometers on the ripio (gravel road) that took us through the village and then to the beach. A litle guy was walking along with us. We started chatting. He told me it was 6 hours to Cole Cole, the beach we were planning to camp at. I said no, it is somewhere between 4 and 5 hours, depending on walking speed. No, 6 hours he insisted. So where was he from? Cole Cole. And where was he going? to Cole Cole... so I thought, maybe if he says 6 hours, he knows what he is talking about...
I informed the others that if we were walking at the same speed as that little guy, it should take us 6 hours, which would mean 2 hours walking at night... No problemo, he was a litlle guy, we would certainly walk faster than him...
We got to the beach, the weather was not bad (it was not raining), but the ocean and the coastline was covered with a misty fog, the wind carrying over thin drops of water. Quite cold, and very humid.
We walked for ages, on that endless dark sand beach, along the waves of the Pacific. I loved it, but the girls seemed to be a little bored, and wondering if they had made the right choice to go with us! 50 meters from the shore, started the forest, a thick luxuriant evergreen rainforest.
The little guy we were supposed to overtake was staying ahead of us, we were definitely not walking faster than him. I joked that the last thing we needed to destroy our morale was to see him jumping on his horse and ride away.
After two hours walking on the beach, we arrived at the village of Huentemo. The national park is inhabited by indigenous people, who also manage the campsites and the trails (as they use them themselves anyway).
That is where our little guy jumped on his horse and rode away, but not before telling us we still had 4 hours to walk. The girls were discouraged, and wanted to stay there, as we had at best 2 hours before dark.
We asked other people, and apparently we were more like 1h30 from Cole Cole. So we kept going.
After the flat 2 hours walking on the beach, we entered the border of the rainforest, going up and down along the coast, quite cold, very humid, slippery and very steep at times.
I walked up front, and kept going, to arrive as soon as possible and find the refugio, setup the fire before dark, even if the others arrived a bit later.
I got to Cole Cole beach. Could not find the campground easily, went around, visited a spooky burnt down house with all the people's belonging still lying everywhere in the field, followed some fresh horse tracks to find... only a horse... the clouds were still there, and it was getting dark.
Lionel arrived 15 minutes after me, and said "Aren´t the girls with you?" Oh Ohhhh!
They had taken a wrong turn, Lionel had waited for them and then had thought they had made it by another track. Not!
Either they were lost in the forest (unprobable), or they were going to come out of the forest but we did not know from where, or they had stopped at some house lost in the forest. In any case, we had to find them, it was not possible to leave them for the night without knowing if they were safe.
I started blowing my whistle (which I carry exactly to use in that kind of situation), but we had no answer. The night was seriously falling, we had maybe another 10 minutes before complete dark, and the sky was completely overcast with very low clouds. We decided that I would get down to the beach to set up the camp, while Lionel would keep waiting and calling for the girls, and then if they did not show up, go to look for them. And oh, did I mention that the girls had no torchlights?
They arrived 15 minutes after Lionel, they had taken a wrong turn and had come back on the right track, and had heard us whistling for them. Marie had a sore knee, from the walking, that is why they had been slower.
We arrived on the beach at night, did not really find the campsites, found a wooden shack that was in a good shape. It turned out it was open, and there was a beauty of a wooden floor waiting for us, so we did not even have to set up the tents. There was a wooden table and a fireplace outside, so we camped there.
Other small adventures like wood gathering in a dark and damp forest at night, lighting a fire under a light rain, not finding freshwater to drink, getting water from the ocean to cook the pasta, getting soaked by a big wave while getting water from the ocean to cook the pasta, making a canvas with green branches to grill the steaks, getting terribly thirsty because we stupidly added salt in the ocean water for the pasta, going to search for the river that had to be there to get some water to drink, finding local fishermen camping by the river, etc...
We also found the campground, and the refugio, which was really in a bad state, all rotten and falling apart... So we were maybe trespassing in private property, by staying in that shack on the beach. Anyway we did not have a choice, we were not going to move during the night.
A walk on the beach before going to bed. The full moon, invisible through the clouds, was still procuring a dim light on the beach. We went to sleep, with the sound of the ocean waves crashing on the shore, a constant and chaotic noise. We were in a remote and magic place, I really had a feel for that secluded beach, stuck alone between two rocky points, the Pacific Ocean and the rainforest.
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